Bolivia: Philip IV Cob 8 Reales 1653 P-E-PH VF Details (Environmental Damage) NGC,...

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Philip IV Cob 8 Reales 1653 P-E-PH VF Details (Environmental Damage) NGC, Potosi mint, KM21, Cal-1503. Dot-PH-dot below crown variety. A popular transitional type that followed the Great Scandal of the Potosi mint. Showing a bold strike which rendered two bold dates and a partial one in the legend.

Organized by the assayers and other mint workers, the plan behind the "Potosi Scandal" was to reduce the purity of their coins while the thieves kept the remaining silver for themselves. The impacts were immense, even shaking Spain's reputation with the Asian trade, where merchants had the upmost trust for the Spanish Cob's silver quality. A transition of coinages occurred, full of unsuccessful attempts to uniformize the currency, one of them being the countermarking of the scandal coins with Crowned letters (or crowns alone), reducing the 8 Reales to 7 1/2 Reales. To set in stone the "New Potosi mint", a new style of Cobs was created (Pillars and Waves) and the scandal coins, countermarked or not, were to be re-melted/destroyed.

Metal: Silver
Weight: 27.0703g
ASW: 0.8102oz

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